For interventionist hammers, every perturbation anywhere is a nail waiting to be hit. Haiti is the current nail, so let’s hit it! From Doug Bandow at theamericanconservative.com:
Their only solution to any problem is to invade. Does anyone have a better idea?
It’s been just another day at the office in Port-au-Prince.
President Jovenel Moise was assassinated. The murder might have been organized by Haitian expatriates. It could have been an inside job. Perhaps it was criminal gangs. Or, suggest the conspiracy-minded, the CIA was back to its old tricks.
Amid two constitutions, desiccated institutions, and multiple factions, at least four men claimed to be Moise’s successor. The lower house of the legislature is empty, with elections long overdue. Only a third of the members of the upper house remain in office. The head of the country’s supreme court died of COVID-19.
Haiti’s imbroglio trumps any drama in Washington, D.C., even during the Trump years. Unfortunately, Haiti has suffered through similarly unnerving events throughout its history.
Originally a French colony which implemented a particularly brutal and deadly form of slavery, the country of Haiti emerged from an extended slave revolution. Over the years, decades, and centuries there have been dictators, populists, crooks, coups, elections, murders, revolts, demonstrations, and poverty, always terrible, overwhelming, grinding poverty. Throughout the country’s history, outsiders—including France, Dominican Republic, the U.S., and United Nations—have added to Haiti’s misery.
So what is the solution to Haiti’s latest offense against good governance? Foreign occupation, of course! The Washington Post pushed “swift and muscular international intervention.”
